The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7205 p3
6 July 2002

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New contract depends on OFT report

The Department of Health is waiting for the Office of Fair Trading to report on community pharmacy competition before it takes forward proposals for a new community pharmacy contract.

That was revealed by the Department's chief pharmaceutical officer, Dr Jim Smith, at the northern regional pharmacy conference on 20 June.

Dr Smith also explicitly acknowledged that skill mix issues, intended to free pharmacists from routine pharmaceutical duties so that the National Health Service can make better use of their skills, will increase community pharmacy contractors' costs. He cited community pharmacy as a perfect example of a public-private partnership.

Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, has welcomed Dr Smith's public acknowledgement that skill-mix changes would cost money, not save it.

She is also pleased that the Department has recognised that community pharmacy is a public-private partnership.

"At last we have acknowledgement of the arguments we have been putting forward," Mrs Sharpe said.

Commenting on Dr Smith's statement about the new contract, Mrs Sharpe said: "We have had discussions with the Department and have arrived at a good degree of common understanding as to what should go in a new contract. But the Department has said that it will wait for the OFT report before agreeing it."

The PSNC has argued that health service planning objectives should predominate over any competition concerns. The Department has made it clear to the PSNC, and has stated in its pharmacy plan, that it wants to maintain controls over new pharmacy contracts in general, but that it also wants to make changes in respect of out-of-town centres.

"They will want to give careful consideration to the views of a watchdog body," Mrs Sharpe said.